Gunmen storm Parliament in Chechnya, 6 dead [October 19 2010]

Islamic insurgents including a suicide bomber stormed Chechnyas Parliament on Tuesday, leaving six people dead and 17 injured in one of the most brazen attacks on the provincial capital in months, officials said.

Ten years after the latest separatist war in the volatile region in southern Russia and after a decade of roundups and disappearances of Islamic suspects, it appears that Chechnyas Kremlin-backed administration still cant stop separatists from trying to blow up Parliament. Todays attack left a grim scene around the Parliament building, with body parts and a decapitated corpse lying on the ground near shattered window glass. Interior Ministry special forces paced the area in camouflage fatigues, wielding grenade-launching Kalashnikov rifles.

Chechnya, part of Russias volatile North Caucasus region, has been battling an Islamist insurgency for years despite the iron rule of its Moscow-backed president, Ramzan Kadyrov. The exact motive for Tuesdays attack was not known, but Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev was in Grozny for talks with Kadyrov about recent violence.

One militant set off a bomb Tuesday at the gates of the Parliament complex in Grozny, the Chechen capital, killing himself and wounding others, Chechen police spokesman Ramzan Bekkhoyev told The Associated Press. At least two other gunmen ran into the building shouting "Allahu akbar!" — "God is great!" in Arabic — as they opened fire on the people inside, he said. Two police officers and one parliamentary official were killed in the attack and at least two insurgents were slain in an ensuing firefight, officials said.